the anomaly game
by toavengeme
Summary: Prince Loki has been a criminal just waiting to hatch. Fandral the Dashing doesn't buy a crumb of that lie. (In which Fandral thinks back to who Loki was when younger, and figures out criminal Loki is as cunning as he's ever been during their treasonous conversation...possibly too cunning for his own good.)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Written because I needed more of the Warriors Three, especially flirty but loyal Fandral, and pre-canon Thor and Loki. Also craved more of fatherly Odin like water in a desert.

 **WARNING:** Some flirty scenes, including a kissing scene with Loki and Fandral. None get graphic or move beyond kissing. Used to prove my Loki's a romantic demisexual, which would be queer alongside any other sexuality in Asgard that is not heterosexual. Not Loki/Fandral (you'll see).

* * *

Fandral could never understand why the prince never said anything.

Nothing that would keep his honor.  
Nothing that would be a cry for help.  
Nothing that would clear his name.

And now, as he stands hiding behind the shadows of an empty cell looking upon who claims his friend's face and body and cleverness while the night is not so young anymore, he desperately wants to ask why.

Why? Because somewhere deep inside him, he just knows this is not the true face of the younger prince. It's burning him from the inside out that nonetheless the once-prince winds himself so deep in its threads and cloths that all minus a few believe this has been the prince who walked their halls all along, just lurking for the right moment to break free.

So, Fandral crouches in the shadows of the Aesir dungeons. Is it possible that he who is amongst the few is wrong? He digs through his memory while he watches the prisoner toss beams of harmless seidr off his walls.

#

This so-called Loki is cruel. This so-called Loki verbally assaulted a female, so he heard, and despite Fandral's disinterest in small mortals, she was nonetheless a female. If he were to step back in time to tell younger, saner Loki what this Loki would come to say to the woman, he would have his jaw punched out of its hinges and all his ribs broken into shards in a blink, though popular culture knew of no such side of the prince.

They interpreted another, and he could remember when it began.

The Warriors Three, Lady Sif, and the princes returned from a journey to Alfheim one spring day of the same year Mjolnir first chose Thor. He, of course, suggested they stop at Brynjar's Bar to regain their strength. Unbeknownst to them, the day they arrived was a special holiday for the half Aesir and half Vanir employees of the place. Not only did the entrees come in double portions for the same price, and the boarding wage remain half-priced, but Lady Dagmar and her renowned Vanir women graced each corner with their enticing scents of silks, satins, quartz, and lotions.

"Look at that show," said Volstagg, pointing to a stunning bronze one unclothing herself from her drapes of sky blue silk in the lap of another warrior.

Lady Sif rolled her eyes. "End your slavering and eat your food."

"Else what?" Fandral retorted.

"I leave."

"Oh, dear Sif, you are in a man's land. You had better acquaint yourself soon."

"You blockheads assume you are men because you can see over tables, however your brains are nothing more than a 200-year-old's capacity."

Thor chuckled. "Perhaps, but you must admit our boyish minds have fine taste."

"Precisely. Dagmar and company are as fine as they come, is that not so my big friend?"

"I loathe agreeing with you but I must confess 'tis true," said Volstagg.

Another insult hung at the edge of Sif's tongue, but something caught her eye. Her cheeks went from agitated pink to infuriated fire. "Norns, I hate you all. Slivering, disgusting, immoral cows..."

While she went on grumbling and ravaging her entree, the young warriors turned to find the source of her seething wrath. Loki, who'd gone to fetch more drinks, had been stopped by Lady Dagmar herself.

"Who would have thought little brother would catch her eye first?" said Fandral as he leaned as close to the table as possible to see everything. Thor crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, watching with such a proud grin that only his victory one could match its pride.

Her dainty fingers plucked the tinted mugs out of his hands and set them down on the table she backed him up against. She took small, dancing steps closer while her sunset-red nails tickled the side of his neck.

He pushed her draping golden locks behind her shoulder with the tenderness of a dove, which encouraged the doe-eyed queen of hearts to lean in for a kiss. Though she was renowned for her patience in seducing gentlemen, she had given herself unknowingly into the arms of an even more patient prince. She was the one to melt into the soft kisses, the one to ache for more.

Being the most respected out of all the lover ladies there, it was more than just Loki's party who watched, hence why there was a more or less a collective silence of surprise when Lady Dagmar stole his embracing hands and placed them above her mustard yellow satin sash, yet he refused to unclothe her. Instead of baring her, his hands found their place underneath her arms, just above her naked waist. And he kissed the crook of her neck.

In moments she was the one sent in a frenzy. She broke away from him, pulling him towards where the rooms were, but the younger prince would not budge. With his last curious kiss he ran his fingers deep into her locks, and before his goodbye one, he whispered something that left her rosier than a satisfied lover.

He picked up the drinks again and rejoined his group.

"Brother, stop gawking. It is impolite," he chided the older prince still staring at Lady Dagmar. "Brynjar said all our drinks are on the house, so here, drink to your belly's content."

Then he set Volstagg and Fandral's drinks down. "You two on the other hand had better not. I do mind helping a drunk who is not my brother home."

"Noted," both replied at once.

He shed his jacket and sat. Lady Sif glared at him, then pinched her lips when he noticed. "I hate you. But I currently hate you least."

Loki smiled. "Thank you?"

"Speak another word and I shall cut your tongue out."

Thor faced forward in his seat and took up his mug with a sigh. "Bloody Hel, brother, you missed a most splendid opportunity."

The younger shrugged. "She is lovely, but it was not the right time."

"No, see here, I must teach you a lesson I call 'letting loose.' Drink this. I will fetch myself another."

"Thor, I agree to intoxication for reasons unlike yours. Drink it yourself. I am fine."

That was when Lady Dagmar returned. She tapped the younger's shoulder, and he turned. With a beam he stood up to let her take his seat.

"Please, it would be a pleasure," he encouraged when she was hesitant about the rest of the staring warriors. She sat, he draped his jacket over her shoulders, and then pulled another chair for himself. "I would buy you a drink, dear, but I fear that would rush our friendship."

The woman laughed. "Indeed, but I rarely drink. Did I smell Alfheim meadows on you, or was that my dreams speaking?"

He lit up. "Yes, my friends and I voyaged there. Have you ever made acquaintance with a Meadow Elf?"

"No, but I hear they harvest the sun and moon! I've dreamed of holding a starlight necklace since I was but a lass."

"My brother and I acquired some as a gift," joined Thor, "If it be your desire then we can gift it to you."

Volstagg chuckled. "In that case I will gift you my portion as well."

Just like that the group warmed to chatting with the most beautiful woman in the bar.

But just like that, the not so beautiful rumors began about the younger prince too.

#

This so-called Loki had not a drop of love. This so-called Loki had no consideration whatsoever for anyone other than himself.

Four centuries or so years ago, Fandral had learned the facts were quite opposite in a way he never would have expected. He walked in on the younger drinking Elvish wine, or he had been because the prince balanced on the line between tipsy and drunk. When the shadow noticed his presence, he blinked out of his melancholy and shouldered into monstrous agitation.

"Do any of you know what it means to knock?" he all but yelled.

"You...drank."

"Yes, well I am bothered. Get out."

Fandral shut the door and locked it behind him, just to encourage himself to push on despite the prince's mood. He sat on the edge of Loki's emerald colored bed while the other uncurled himself from the sofa near his window.

"What are you bothered about?"

"Everyone, everything, everywhere."

"Can you be a bit more specific?"

The younger released a sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl. "I have a better proposition. Let us have you answer why the Hel you are in my room."

"I am here because I am your friend, Loki. Maybe not the best of a friend, but a friend after all."

"What are you beating at then _friend_?"

The warrior let the brutal sarcasm go over his head. "I was there when you refused to dance with the princess of Nidavellir, and heard all the whispers you no doubt heard."

That ignited Loki's blazing anger, evident by the way the younger set his jaw. Fandral ducked out of the way just before the flying wine bottle could shatter on his head.

"I. Do. Not. Care."

"Of course you do. That happened four feasts ago yet the gossip has yet to fade."

Loki sneered at the carpet below, fingers curling into his palm. "Get out."

"Just answer this. Are you homosexual?"

That earned him a stare sharper than a two-edged sword. "Get. the Hel. Out."

"Are you or not? Because if you are I have to tell your mother. She approached me more than once, you know."

The prince's fury softened into something Fandral could't quite place his finger on. "What did she want?" he whispered.

"For me to find you a woman. If...if you are not attracted to women, then perhaps I could find you a shapeshifting male. He could be to Asgard's liking in public, but to, uh, your liking when you...you know."

"Listen, I have a refined taste—"

Fandral felt the anxiety in his throat loosen. "So you do like women?"

The prince sat up arrow straight in his chair, glaring at the warrior. "You did not let me finish. I have a refined taste in lovers. If I find them, male or female, pleasing to spend time with, then yes, I would have them. However, my tastes lean towards those who have wombs."

"So...women."

"Likely."

Fandral sighed. "Then what in all the Nine Realms made you think the princess unattractive? She is of age, tall, opinionated as you...has a womb."

"She was up to the center of my chest."

"True, but she is the tallest and most delicate dwarf to ever grace Nidavellir royalty. You could have agreed if not for her sake then for yours."

Loki clicked his tongue, then shrugged and leaned back in his seat. "I do not consider a fawning girl with no sense of individuality to be graceful enough."

Fandral rolled his eyes behind his hands. "Do you have any idea what people say of you?"

"You did mention one accusation."

"There is a more repulsive one."

Loki grinned. "Yes, I know. Odin forbid the shadow prince is asexual."

That made Fandral's agitation sharpen. "If you know then why do you not fend for your damn honor? You're a damn prince for Norns' sake!"

Minutes of silence passed without any of the two saying or doing a thing. Then, Loki rose. With each word he neared his friend.

"Because as I like it, I relish in knowing that those who have experience with me know better. Why should I throw my private being out into the public when they twist anything for more gossip? I am what I am, I love how I love, and I love whom I love."

Then, the unexpected happened. Loki bent to Fandral's eye level, and placed a kiss on his lips. Before the warrior could say a word, he covered his mouth.

"As I said, I have a refined taste. Seeing as you cannot comprehend it with that narrow mind of yours, I figure I should let you be one to experience it. Though I should let you know that the small demonstration you will experience is less than my usual passion, considering you are not my ideal lover."

There was another kiss, then another, and another. But each he received grew softer and kinder, tenderer and more passionate, but never desperate.

Fandral himself, who intoxicated the most prudish of women, grew intoxicated with the scent and touch of Loki. Even stranger was though the prince coaxed him back into his pillows with nothing more than running his fingers through his hair and kisses from his lips to his neck, it was that that turned on the dashing warrior like never before.

Button by button the younger undid his shirt, and with each new patch of exposed skin rained more kisses down on him. The tenderness wrapped around his chest and became a bolt of tickling shock in his spine.

"Norns..." the Warrior sighed.

"Shut up," Loki whispered in such a tone it made him shiver, and came back up to his lips.

It was when Fandral reached past the prince's waist that Loki gave him a last trail of kisses. The younger left the thrilled warrior for his wardrobe. Fandral blinked half a dozen times and sat up, starting at his open shirt.

"You might as well finish me, princeling."

Loki flung his nightwear over his arm and spun around. "I said I would give you a small demonstration. I also said you are not my ideal lover, thus I refuse to mar my consummations with the likes of you."

"But you've me ready. Why not chase the thrill?"

Loki read deeper than his sentence. He scowled. "You think this was a confession of hidden feelings. I love to burst your fantasies dear friend: it was nothing of the sort. Now get out so I can change."

Fandral leaned back on the wall, combing back the tufts of his golden hair with a smirk. "I have a question. How many bedmates have you had?"

To his surprise, Loki did not look bothered by the question at all. "Dagmar Otisdottir, Tegan Cavanaughdottir, and Blaine Dennison."

"Did Blaine have a womb?"

Loki glared at him for a moment. "You will not be leaving, will you?"

"Astute."

To which the younger tossed his nightwear on his chair and proceeded to change while he talked. "Indeed. Blaine is a birther in his race."

"Why so much attraction to those with wombs?"

"You must consider your consummation could create life, which therefore leads you to strive to satisfy your partner, who holds the most sacred place of the whole Nine Realms in their body. The last thing you should wish is to have them unsatisfied."

Fandral had to give it to him. He was quite lovely even underneath his clothes. "Right. And what makes you choose your lovers?"

"A deep friendship."

"And you are still friends with your three mates?"

"Of course. I met Lady Tegan again in the meadows of Alfheim for the celebration of her conception two feasts ago. I write to Lady Dagmar and Sir Blaine until our paths cross again. And no, before you ask, I do not have them when we do meet again, unless the moment is right. Which brings me to our conclusion, _good friend_."

Loki threw his daily clothes to the dirty pile for the maids and wend to his armoire to snatch up his comb. "Though you were a titillating distraction, you alas are not my type for more reasons than one. I would request that you not share this happened, lest someone I care about come to a false conclusion about my sexuality."

"Good Norns... I snogged a prince."

Loki slammed his comb down and whirled around, seething. "Does that pathetic mind of yours have the capacity to listen to someone who does not have breasts?"

Fandral beamed at him. "That was wondrous."

"You haven't even been listening at all!"

But he had been, and he agreed eventually.

As the years passed both matured, but neither held any more attraction than they had before the act. They remained friends, sometimes bickering just as much as Fandral and Volstagg, but there was a strange pang in the dashing warrior's throat when he caught Loki lead one single bedmate to his rooms between that night and the night before his fall.

It panged not because he loved him, or wished for their night to happen again, but because he wished others could understand Loki's most devoted way of loving.

So how was it he could lose such unshakable respect and unwavering tenderness in what felt like a blink? Not just towards lovers, but towards his own friends and family.

#

This so-called Loki did not need anything from anyone or do anything for anyone. This so-called Loki seethed with an air of independence he would never thin out.

Two centuries or so before, Loki had still been in training. And a trainer.

Lady Sif, agitated at how she continuously missed the bullseye, hollered across the breezy training grounds for him. Once he reached her, Fandral and Hogun decided to listen in on how to 1) deal with an angry Sif and 2) hold a bow and arrow best. With the younger being best at wielding compact weapons, she listened with the least of a frown, that is until he finished his rundown.

"I did do that!" She aimed for the target just to prove it again, but her arrow crashed into a tree to the side of it. "I hate bows and arrows. Unless they are on fire they are useless pieces of material."

"Do you call a harp broken if you do not know how to play it?"

"No..." she grumbled.

"Precisely." He took her bow, then got into position. "This is how you hold a bow. Hogun, do you have an extra arrow?" The grim Warrior nodded and handed him one. "So, hold your index finger out towards your target, place the arrow on top, then pull the middle of the string backwards with your first two fingers holding the back of the arrow straight. Do not move anything but your fingers when you shoot."

He let the arrow fly, which landed in the center of the bullseye.

Sif just gawked. "Are you blind? I did that!"

"You did partially, but you raised your shoulders too high. If you shoot with too much tension in your grip then your arrow will shoot too far off track." He resumed his usual posture and held the bow out to her. "Try again."

With a huff, she grabbed it back. She glared at it for a moment, then at Loki before she assumed position.

"Take a small step back with your right foot."

"Why the Hel do I need to do that?"

Loki barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and Fandral caught Hogun breaking a smile. "Because your back will not cramp up if you plan to practice longer than for two shots."

"You say this to make me look like an idiot."

"No I am not—"

She spun around towards her other friends. "Did you see him step back like an idiot?"

Fandral shook his head with a grin, but Hogun just crossed his arms.

Loki huffed this time. "Sif, I am taller than you. I do not need to—"

She recoiled towards him. "Oh really? You know then that I can kick something very tender without taking a precious step back."

"I am trying to help you, woman!"

"Did...did you just call me 'woman?'"

Loki kneaded his forehead. "Norns help me... Would you just shoot the damn arrow?"

Lady Sif growled under her breath, but she did assume position, even taking a step back. She let another of Hogun's arrows fly, which touched down at the edge of the bullseye.

While Loki tried to hide his gloating grin, Lady Sif tried to pretend she had nothing to apologize or thank him for. The younger prince did not seem to mind.

Yet now Fandral saw something different at the memory. Behind the satisfied grin lay the pain of not being appreciated. After all, if Thor had been the better archer, then they would have called upon him for help, and if he had, then none would have dreamed to leave their thanks unspoken.

It pained him to think of how often that scenario replayed during their adventures together in some sort of similarity. It pained him to think of how many thank-yous Loki never received.

Odin forbid how many thank-yous Thor received when it was Loki who deserved them, which reminded him of one particular instance not too long ago.

#

This so-called Loki killed for a throne. This so-called Loki never stopped spewing out black words, especially at the mention of his older brother.

Four decade or so before, no two brothers could compare to them. They were black and white, yin and yang. They were at their best when in each other's presence, even when the younger started wearing blinds over his soul.

Then came the adventure that proved how much the universe needed them to be at arms together, forever.

Two of the Warriors, Lady Sif, and Thor journeyed to Muspelheim to stop a violent uprising between the orthodox giants and liberal giants.

The orthodox ones followed the commands of Surtur, their king, who was and still is an angry creature focused on destroying Asgard's role as peacekeeper. The liberal ones were no better, but they were craftier. These followed a radical named Cuxto, who believed their king had too small goals for too high of a price. Their objective was to take over Asgard to gain complete access of the Bifrost - the gate to all worlds - then rule all the realms.

What started as a ragtag uprising spawned into half of Muspelheim fighting the other half. So passionate had the civil war become that it threatened to spill into neighboring realms.

Thus, Thor and his friends were sent to end the war. Loki had stayed behind in the healing chambers, for he had caught a mysterious virus that started with minor enough symptoms, yet by each hour drained gallons of life out of him. By the third day, no one in Asgard seemed capable of curing it. (Later the boy would come to realize it was a fatal disease akin to parasites in Aesir blood but that ravaged Frost Giants specifically. It carried from an infected corpse of a Frost Giant in the dungeons, to Aesir guards, then to palace workers until the virus met and destroyed him.)

Fandral had also been kept in Asgard. Thor told him to stay behind to heal from a shoulder injury wrought on by a bout he'd broken up at the bar a night before. The golden prince assumed the battle would not last long.

He was wrong.

At first the Warriors and Thor along with the element of surprise crippled some of the uprise, but when it became obvious that such a small group threatened the Fire Giants, the two sides formed a truce to kill the trespassing Aesir.

Odin received news of the development from Heimdall, Frigga from Odin, and Loki from Frigga by accident.

Through the younger prince's delirium from half a dozen different spells and medications fermenting in his body, he latched onto the stable sound of his mother, who stood near his bed. Sometimes she talked, sometimes she ran her fingers through his hair, but mostly she did both.

She wished she could rip the disease out of him to suffer it instead, then switched over to how annoyed she was that Thor had to battle with his hands all the time ("Just like your father"). The All-Mother dropped hints of the danger the gang had put themselves in without realizing her youngest was conscious enough to comprehend. Though she said an army of Aesir had been sent to help, the truth was that it was difficult to kill a Fire Giant.

The worst development however was Thor. Not only was he in danger, but he was danger that no one could stop.

Once his father escaped from hearings, he joined Loki's side as well. The warrior of old took his boy's skeletal hand and placed it against his cheek while Frigga, as usual, gave him the lowdown ("Nothing is working, my heart. You must consult the Black Book,") then combusted in annoyance towards Thor's rashness. She ended her daily outpouring crying angry tears at how she could lose both sons by morning.

When Odin demanded she leave to take a walk for some fresh air, the younger took advantage of their intimacy.

"Father," he whispered, reaching out for his familiar leather fingers.

Odin stilled. "Yes?"

"I can—" he swallowed bitter nausea from the lights swimming in his sight "—help Thor."

Fandral, who'd been waiting not too far from Loki's infirmary room for a checkup, snuck as close as he could to hear more.

"You are not strong enough. Now rest, my boy."

Loki tried to shake his head, but the tendons in his neck throbbed. Instead, he groaned. "I can do it. I can — help."

Odin released a sound somewhere between a distressed sigh and a proud grunt. "Loki, rest that rushing mind of yours. That is an order."

Despite his father's firmer hold and the boy's struggles for air, the prince grasped the edge of his bed to rise. "Then I can — do it — myself."

Fandral caught the sight of as warm a smile as Queen Frigga's. "You are as stubborn as the eternal elves." He tenderly pushed him back down, then tucked him in again. "Hush and sleep. Thor will come to his senses."

"Quite counterfactual."

"Loki, hush." The All-Father then weaved a sleeping spell into the web of those already inside him.

There came the awkward moment in the evening where Loki was alone for a grand total of two minutes. The healers would do their rounds around the palace, the All-Mother dined with her companions, and the All-Father penned the latest reports in his records. Of course All-Father would finish first, which Loki knew very well.

However, that eve he knew he had not been left alone.

"Fandral," he whispered. The warrior jolted up from his cat nap in the chair nearest the young prince.

"Yes, prince?"

"You have to — carry me."

"... What?"

"Thor is an — animal without me. Quick."

"But you must—"

"Shut. Up. Pick. Up."

That was how Fandral found himself committing treason the second time in his whole two-thousand years. He ignored the sharp pain in his shoulder along with his nagging conscience and gathered the wilting prince up into his arms.

"Left," said Loki once they stepped outside of the healing room.

"But the stairs are at right."

Dying or not, the younger could fling daggers with his glare alone along with his screaming whisper. "Treason requires covertness you bloody imbecile — Ahh!"

Fandral panicked at the prince grasping his chest. He ran left and scrambled to place Loki on solid ground. "What hurts? I can race back for analgesics."

Loki kicked his legs out from under him. "Get me to the damned Bifrost!"

"Alright, alright."

With some more of Loki's guiding through the shadows, they reached Heimdall undetected. The younger managed to get onto his own feet, but Fandral held him steady. By the looks of the Gatekeeper's sword already in place, it was clear Heimdall had seen their quest.

"Loki," he said, his golden eyes resting upon him without any perceivable emotion.

The prince glared at him. "Listen. You will open — the gate for me — or I will do it — myself."

Heimdall considered him a moment longer in silence, then he turned and activated the bridge. "Whatever the cost, stop your brother."

"I know."

With that, Heimdall stepped outside of the Bifrost as rainbow lights flooded the golden dome. They were both sucked into Yggdrasil in the protective veins of ancient seidr. Then they touched ground in the midst of an ocean of smoldering Fire Giant corpses. Ashes crumbled off their charcoal bodies.

The only sounds were that of cracking lightning and yelling or dying Giants. Thor had morphed into berserk Thor, who had obliterated half the population of Giants.

Fandral helped Loki stand, but when the younger prince saw the sight of small and enormous crippled corpses, ashen bodies and those encased in broken golden armor, he fell to his knees heaving. Sif, Hogun, and Volstagg ran towards them, their eyes wide and bloodshot as their bodies.

"Loki! Oh thank Odin," exclaimed Volstagg.

Sif marched right up to him. "It is about bloody time you picked your pathetic backside up. Your brother is fucking insane!"

Loki nodded into the ashes of Muspelheim. He felt like he was melting, but he forced his liquid back to hold him up."I can do it."

"You better do something to help for once!"

Fandral found himself shoving her onto her backside at the insult. "Shut that damn mouth of yours for once. He has been busy dying just as much as you."

And that was the first time any of them had ever seen Sif's coarse personality melt away. Her eyes jumped from Fandral to the younger prince. Tossing aside her weapons, she scrambled to help Thor's little brother up with worry dripping off her skin.

"I am fine," Loki argued with a feeble attempt to push her away. Then he tried to stand on his own, but everything in his body felt like water.

"Oh gods. Oh gods," Sif panicked aloud. "Fandral, did you sneak him out?" The dashing nodded. She tumbled backwards. "Holy Helheim, we all die today, if not here then by Odin."

Fandral pulled her up to her feet. "Quiet, and help me get him to Thor."

"That animal cannot distinguish between friends and foes. I do not dare."

"Sif, just trust him. He has done this before. He knows what to do." When she still refused to help, he turned to Volstagg and Hogun.

"No," rushed the big one, "I have a family. I...I cannot risk a treason summon."

"I will help then," said Hogun the Grim. "Warriors die together."

"Yes, thank you for your never-ending optimism. Hurry."

The two carried him as close as they dared before they retreated at the bodies flying towards them. Thor crushed Giants left and right without a moment of break. Lightning rippled over his skin like water over fish scales.

The older prince whirled around to see the new smaller body crawling closer to him. With a roar he ran towards it, Mjölnir ready. Loki barely dodged the hit.

"Thor, stop," he yelled at the top of his shriveled lungs. "No more. No. More."

He did not. He grabbed Loki up by his flimsy infirmary gown and raised his weapon, but Loki punched him straight in the windpipe milliseconds before his end. Thor fell backwards, choking and rasping, while Loki rained to the ground. Something that wasn't supposed to crack did so in his body.

"You barbarous cow!" With his last drops of energy, he propped his pulsing upper body up. "Stop. Look around you! You've stomped out enough lives to fill your blasted grave."

"Odin, help us," Sif breathed.

"Why is he not doing the spell?" asked Volstagg in the middle of an anxiety attack.

"Because he is dying," the not-so-dashing-anymore one grumbled.

Berserk Thor seemed to not hear his little brother. He plucked him up again, then tossed him towards the ground. Loki couldn't even scream from the pain.

Thor came back again; picked him up again, but this time his crazed power calmed. Through eyes flashing with the raw power of electrons, he saw the state of his baby brother. Mjölnir dropped from his grip. Though lightning still crackled underneath his skin, the older rushed to set him down, then fell at his side.

"Brother?" he frantically tapped Loki's newly ashened cheeks. "Loki!"

"Shut up."

"Father told me you were getting better."

Loki tried to grin despite the blackness over his eyes and the agonizing pain all over his body. "Am I dead yet?"

"No."

"Then I am — not doing half bad."

The Giants surrounded the princes and the warriors, but it was Odin's blinding appearance that made them all shriek and bolt away from the cold magic of the Bifrost.

Odin marched past the Warriors without so much as a glance, and tore his youngest from his oldest's arms. In a blink, Heimdall brought them all back, but rather than scolding Thor's irrational behavior, the All-Father broke into a run with his youngest in arms to meet the healers halfway across the bridge.

They all went to their homes, awaiting a trial for what had transpired, but no such claim came about. The All-Father summoned the dangerous art of black magic to obliterate the mutated cells in Loki's body, which made him even weaker.

In time however, Loki's body rebuilt itself. But time was also cruel, because those who knew of the fiasco including the Warriors forgot of the part Loki played in saving thousands upon thousands of lives in face of other missions.

The credit went to Thor for stopping the Muspelheim civil war after all. Oh, and Loki minded, considering his act of bravery and devotion to his brother had placed him at the threshold of death, but he never said a word.

Then he said nothing about his silvertongue saving them in Nidavellir.

Then he said nothing about his glamour being the reason he stole the Eye of Adonis back for Asgard's vault when the Warriors weren't clever enough.

Then he said nothing about his real mist veiling them in Nornheim.

He said nothing about many things, until he screamed so loud but none of them recognized his voice.

Fandral's eyes light up where he sits in the shadows. He's found the missing variable. If he knew what happened the day Thor was banished to Midgard, then maybe he could piece the puzzle together, because that had to be the day Loki screamed.

Maybe, if he asks the right questions, he can find the prince again.


	2. Chapter 2

Loki stops pacing in his almost empty cell. Though he looks hesitant, he ends up plucking a book out of a few the All-Mother managed to bribe some guards to give to him.

He lays down on the floor and opens to the middle of it. Never one to be mainstream by starting at the beginning, nor one to be rebellious by starting at the end, he does his own thing by always beginning somewhere in the middle of the action.

Fandral sneaks a glance at his watch. It reads 5:08 AM. Then he sighs.

Tomorrow, he concludes, would be a better time to visit. He stands and follows each shadow until he sneaks undetected back out towards the stairs.

He thinks he has a plan that may work. He just needs to talk to Thor, or worst case scenario ask for an audience with the Queen. For the latter situation he would have to think of a way to be subtle so as not to disrespect the Queen's privacy.

But he sees Hugin and Munin out of the corner of his eyes as he treads towards the pathway home. They soar over the trees, blissfully free to adventure, yet they remind him of a variable he overlooked thus far: Odin All-Father.

So now he must be stealthy with talking to Thor or the Queen, and be stealthy when he sneaks in to speak to Loki. Getting caught would be brought up against him as treason since Loki is not to speak to anyone by orders of the King.

Four hours later he meets his warrior friends. Though he was not well rested, he had made sure to have a hearty breakfast. His belly is as full as his confidence, which is why he skips the usual warmups and quips with Volstagg to start with Thor.

"Come on, Thor! Put your back in it."

"I am," the golden prince grunts as he swings his sword towards the dashing. Fandral ducks out of its way with a step back.

He tusks a few times. "It seems you are not. I told you fighting only with Mjölnir would have you forget sword-wielding skills."

Thor laughs, then looks down at the weapon. "Perhaps I should use one for beginners. I admit I am rather slow."

Oh yes, all the Warriors and Sif know how he's slow in more than one way. After Loki's private trial the prince would not practice for four feasts afterwards. It was his father who commanded him to pick it up again. They also saw Thor pacing next to the stairwell that led down to the dungeons more than once. Then there was also his random bursts of anger and exasperation, which lessened once All-Father began sending him and his friends to bring peace to the riling realms again while the Bifrost was being rebuilt.

Others would say he had healed, but all of them knew that was far from the truth. They felt the gaping void of one of them missing, albeit the quiet, tricky one of them that was mostly ignored, but if that was their case then it went without saying that Thor felt that void ten times stronger than they. Spending a millennium with someone and to have them ripped away hurt worse than the gravest wound.

Still, Fandral chooses to keep the spirits up. He takes a beginner sword with Thor, then the two pick up their unspoken competition again. Volstagg and Hogun cross their arms and watch.

"Sloppy," the big one observed aloud to Fandral's awkwardly blocking a hit.

"Have you ever searched that beard of yours? That is sloppy, my friend."

Hogun the Grim grunts in approval. Volstagg pretends he's scratching his chin while he combs through his beard. Meanwhile, Thor loses his grip on his sword; it clatters to the ground. Volstagg chooses to say nothing. He waits until Fandral and the prince get in position to begin anew to speak.

"Boy, have you seen the state of your hair? Which brothel did you escape to this time?"

"That would have to remain a mystery," he says, a teasing smile dancing on his lips.

"Why so?"

"Because why would I tell you? That would mean I would lose ownership of my fine women."

That gets Thor to chuckle. The two pause their spar. "Now I am curious. You look as if you have not rested. Were the women that fantastic then I must command you to share."

"No, no, he was not with any women last night. He is too serious. I can see it in his eyes."

Fandral grins. "I knew my face was too pretty for you to not keep to memory. Tell me, do you dream of me often?"

"Norns!" Thor snorts.

Volstagg stands taller with a chiding expression on, but his eyes betray his amusement. "Indeed I do. I imagine disfiguring its agitating perfection until it is but a pulp."

"I would be the most handsome of the land still."

"You went to the dungeons," Hogun states out of the blue. "You have its mire on your shoes."

Thus, the banter dies. Thor holds the grip of his sword so tight that the sound of it crushing between his fingers fills the momentary silence. Volstagg swallows so loud it makes them all feel it.

Fandral's smile slowly melts into a serious straight line as he meets Hogun's emotionless gaze. He stares at his sword for a moment.

"I did," he whispers.

Volstagg sucks in a breath. "Why in all of the Nine Realms? It is treason to speak with him." His gaze darts to Thor, whose eerie stillness strangles them all.

"I – Gods, I just need to know."

"Know what? We know enough."

Then Thor drops his sword and walks away. Walks. Away. And Fandral feels his chest constrict because Thor has never walked away like that. And he wonders if this all was a terrible, terrible idea.

"Indeed," says Hogun once the prince is out of earshot. "He is no friend."

"There is more to that. He is insane, Fandral. He is not who we knew anymore."

That makes Fandral's veins combust into oceans of flames. He spins and sticks the dull sword against Volstagg's chest.

"How the Hel do you know?"

"How do I know he's insane? He survived the Void you imbecile! And tried to subjugate Midgard."

"Almost killed Thor," adds Hogun.

Fandral sighs and tosses his weapon down. "No, listen. We missed something. Something happened that we do not know. Do you remember us being in the healing chambers after Thor's exile?" Volstagg nods but Hogun continues to glare. "He kept staring at his arm."

The big one rolls his eyes. "Yes, and then confessed to betraying his own brother. We were there."

"And more competent," adds Hogun.

Fandral shakes his head. "No. He blew up at us. At Sif specifically, but at all of us nonetheless. Then the next time we saw him he was on the throne in his father's place, and quite in a mood."

"What is the point to this reliving, boy? 'Tis all a nightmare to remember."

"Why? You scorn him thus?" the dashing mocks, "Lot of a friend you were."

To which Volstagg's hands curl into fists. "I bloody loved that sardonic brat too, you fool. I was amongst the mourning."

"Yes, you and Lady Sif shared such good drinks. I remember."

Volstagg closes the space between them, ears practically fuming. "Does that petty mind of yours recall how many servings I had? 20. I had bloody 20. I have never in my life eaten that much at once."

"Oh, your _poor_ belly."

"Well you certainly were not weeping with your women."

Fandral shoves his friend backwards. "Do not mistake my libido for apathy!"

Volstagg shoves him off his feet. "As I told you not to mistake my appetite for it!"

Then, Einherjar surround the three. Even Hogun looks stunned.

"Fandral," summons one.

"Yes?" he whisperes.

"The All-Father requests your presence." He's about to accept with a fake smile, but when the guards wrap his wrists together with a chain of seidr, he can't even pretend anything.

"Norns," Volstagg says under his breath as Fandral stands in shock staring at his chains. The big one's eyes land on Thor who lingers in the distance, staring out to the glistening path of the Rainbow Bridge. If it is not he who reported Fandral, then: "Odin have mercy."

#

Odin sits on Hlidskjalf in his full regal attire once the doors open. The guards push Fandral into the otherwise empty room, then leave with Odin's passive dismissal. The warrior kneels even as his fear capsizes.

Fandral the Dashing gulps as the All-Father rises after moments of staring silence. He strikes Gungnir, whose resulting thud vibrates across the vast golden hall.

"Fandral Newlyson, rise." He does, trembling. "Do you know why you have been summoned?"

"No, my King."

Odin stares a moment again, then: "It is punishable by flogging to lie in the presence of your king, by death to lie to him. Would you like to rephrase your answer, boy?"

Fandral gulps again. "I-I think yes."

"On with it then."

"Treason."

Odin blinks once, then begins descending the stairs. "Correct. Loki is a prisoner, but he is still a special case. I see all that trespasses in his section." He stops a few feet in front of the sweating warrior. "I saw you in the shadows."

With the glare the All-Father's giving him, Fandral knows it's his turn to say something. He grasps at the edges of his composure to find an excuse minus the obvious answer, but decides it would be too exhausting to formulate, so he tells the truth.

"I wanted to know why. I need to know why."

And he swears he's going insane himself because he sees the hint of a smile tugging at the All-Father's lips before the warrior of old turns to walk aimlessly.

"What causes have you educed?"

He closes his eyes. Wrong word choice could get him killed. "Perhaps um, perhaps...doubt."

"What else?" Odin asks, his tone unconvinced.

"Uh..." He combs back to the scene in the healing chambers to find an emotion behind that cracking mask of the younger prince. "Pain—no, forgive me—fright—no damn it that is not what I meant to say."

Fandral takes to kneeling again in a rush. Blond tendrils stick to his beaded forehead. "Forgive me, my King. I cannot find the right words. I beg your pardon. I mean no dishonor."

Odin remains silent. Worse yet is that he stands as if frozen. Fandral chooses to remain silent until the All-Father breaks the ice.

"Loki is a Frost Giant," he finally says. "You are not wrong to label his emotions."

It takes minutes for Odin's words to soak into his mind, but once they do, he almost swears his soul out in crude strings.

"Would you please repeat that, my King?"

Odin spins around, his one eye strangely glazed over. "I said Loki is a Frost Giant. He is pained and very afraid."

Then is when the mind blowing epiphany hits. With the central piece of the puzzle now plugged in, Fandral shivers as all the facts he knows fall into place around it. Now it seems he can trace the younger's blackened soul from his downfall, through the Void, and up to the sight of Thor leading his shackled shadow of a body towards the All-Father down the Rainbow Bridge. It seems Odin knows exactly what the dashing warrior plugs together behind his distant blue eyes.

"What say you now?" he asks once Fandral blinks back into the present.

The warrior's guts wretch. "A...Frost Giant. That—those beasts. He is one."

"A beast? Hmm." With the warrior being too stunted to say anything else, the All-Father begins walking circles around him. "Fandral Newlyson, I could charge you for treason for disobeying my order: that Loki _Odinson_ cannot speak to anyone without my prior approval. But you are as worthy a friend as I can find. That is, are you still a friend now?"

Fandral fades back into Jotunheim. He feels the arm of the prince holding him up as his chest bleeds out. He remembers the younger telling Sif to take over. Then he sees the prince stop, hears him yell to Thor that they must go. But the most difficult part about the flashback is seeing crimson eyes over his shoulders; blue arms pushing against his open wounds to stop the bleeding; enemy colored thighs and knees being the pillars to keep him from spilling out onto cursed Jotunheim snow.

He does not know what to think, what to feel, but his heart makes up his mind for him. He nods, swallowing horrid bile. All-Father knows the nod is a fallback, but he pretends he does not. It will take time to come to terms with but he knows this friend of Thor's is as loyal to his friends as he is to his kingdom. If Loki had any friend of his own, then it was Fandral (as far as he knew).

"I shall tell you his weaknesses this eve. In exchange, you will spend the twilight hours speaking to him. I shall be watching as I have been. If you agree, then I will drop my charge of treason. Do you have any questions?"

"So you will give me permission to speak to him?"

"No. You will sneak in as you did last night and I shall pretend to be curious enough to indulge you. No one, especially Loki, is to know a word of what we discussed here. Not of his heritage; not of our plots. Understood?"

"Yes, my King. If I may be so bold as to—"

"Spit it out, son."

"Why do you not speak to him?"

Which makes the warrior of old almost sigh. "I did. He is beyond reason with his family. Even with Frigga. His hatred for us runs deeper than I feared it one day could... That, and I fear I am prone to hotheadedness in the face of his newfound stubbornness. I cannot risk saying more to him until he has softened for his own sake.

"But do not mistake me, boy. I am furious with him, with his actions and his madness as much as I was with Thor's. I have prepared a solitary cell in the lowest dungeons to disciple him, and will not save him from it and it's tortures if he does not soften where he is now. However, I held him when he was but a babe; watched his small feet chase mine down this room; fretted when he and Thor were far from home. He is a child of my heart if not my blood. I wish for answers more than anyone, but most of all I wish to see my son breathing behind the costume of that criminal."

Fandral tries not to react to Gungnir shaking in the All-Father's grip. He nods. "I understand, my King."

"Good. Then you are released, but first—" Odin reaches into his pocket dimension, bringing out a bowl of bite sized red velvet cakes with cream cheese frosting, "—take this to him. Spin a tale that his mother baked them for him."

Fandral's seidr chains fall as he takes the full porcelain bowl. "I have heard no one bakes this like she."

"Of course not. She never did." At Fandral's surprised look, Odin chuckles. "Do not tell Loki. As far as he knows it is his mother's special treats. It shall stay that way."

#

Night falls. Fandral plots.

By 1 AM he is as exhausted as a war horse, but he drinks a generous amount of wine, then sneaks to the dungeons. He steals (in cahoots with the All-Father of course) a quilt the Queen had sown together for the younger recently. With the covered bowl of treats and the quilt together in a ransack, he skips the safety of the shadows, opting to let Loki see him coming.

The younger does. He lets his swirls of seidr dissipate and stares. Fandral feels the weight of his hawk-like blues dissecting everything about him. It makes his insides shutter, but he pretends to not mind it. Instead, he sits criss-cross in front of the humming barrier.

The two stare for minutes straight until the younger breaks the silence.

"You should not be here."

The warrior holds his grin at bay. "When has that stopped me?"

Loki's nose twitches. He rises and walks to the edge next to Fandral, where he sits again. "Tell me, did the bloody oaf tell you to come?"

"No."

Fandral notes the maniacal grin. "Did the Queen?"

"Actually, I came of my own accord."

That makes Loki lean backwards and raise his chin with a death glare. It makes bile rise to his throat again. Unbidden, he sees crimson eyes and blue skin. He curses himself mentally because by the mischievous smirk forming on the prince's lips, his shock had trickled to the outside. Fandral does not bat another lash as he transitions to damage control.

"I need to ask you some questions."

"To mock? To gloat?"

"No, because I want to understand."

Loki laughs. It comes out like a whisper, but it's deepness and cruelness carries through a canyon until it ricochets off the walls of the stinking dungeons. He swallows rocks, back tingling at the madness underlining the laugh.

The prince rises. He rests his hands behind his back as he saunters about his almost empty cell. "You and all the rest never wished to do so when I was one of you. I do not care for your pity, or your so-called friendship, Asgardian. You may leave."

"I admit I was a terrible comrade, but I wish to mend that."

"Yet each time the poor boy called wolf you did not come. Leave me be."

Fandral blows his locks out of his eyes. The air of stubbornness agitates him more than anything. "Loki, I am not leaving. If I chose to risk treason then I will pull answers out of you."

The prince stops and turns to face him. The death glare is back, multiplied in intensity by a billion. "Leave, insipid vermin. I will give you nothing. Drown in that petty guilt of yours, I care not."

The warrior stares deep into irises marred by maliciousness. "No. It was Jotunheim that changed you, was it not?"

The cruelty in dead eyes softens into anger. Fandral prepares for another hatred-fueled insult, but instead Loki flicks his fingers. A screen of blackness forms around the cell. He cannot see anything behind it.

The dashing shrugs. "Suit yourself. I will keep talking and—" he opens his ransack, taking out the bowl filled with treats, "—enjoy these by myself." He makes sure to place it at an angle the younger can see, then takes a piece. "Mmmm," he moans, "Hello Valhalla." He takes another bite and chews happily as he watches the illusion fade away. It takes all his determination to not laugh when he sees Loki again. The prince stares at him, then the treats, then him again.

Fandral rewards his impeccable scheming with a grin. "Want some?" Loki just works his lips and swallows. "Do not drool, now, princeling. I am willing to share for a price."

Loki's expression hardens again. He stands taller, trying overly hard to ignore Fandral chewing. "Where did you get them?"

"The All-Mother. Your mother. Entertaining story, actually. All-Father caught her pampering you a little too much. Changed the guard shifts and all." He takes another bite and pulls out the quilt. "Stole this as well. She captured the smell of her eternal gardens with each stitch."

The prince looks away, his jaw working. Fandral makes it a point to chew with his mouth open, nice and loud. Finally, Loki folds.

"What are your terms?"

"I will ask you a question, you will answer yes or no, explain in detail why yes or no, and as a reward, if I am satisfied of course, you will receive one bite per question. If you answer them all, then I will give you your mother's quilt."

Loki sneers. "I do not accept."

"All is well. I will just have these for myself, but Norns, now I understand why you would not share your birthday cakes." He shoves in another four bites. "So, so scrumptious." Crumbs rain down to the floor from his talking while chewing quite on purpose.

Loki paces around, quicker by the second. Fandral notes his lips moving as if he's having an inner conversation. Ten minutes later and some more teasing, Fandral's jaw hurts and Loki drops in front of him. Literally. Frantic yet agitated eyes meet his.

"Fine."

"Good," the warrior says with a beam. "Was it Jotunheim that changed you?"

The prince swallows hard. His eyes flick from him to the bowl. "Yes. I...made a discovery."

"It caused you to veer from innocent machinations to genocide?"

Loki looks like he's about to strangle him. "I answered a question. Give me my treat."

"I said I would if I am satisfied with your answer. Your answer was too vague for my liking. Would you like to remedy that?"

There's a killer pang in Fandral's throat when Loki swallows hard again and shuts his eyes. "No," he whispers. The rawness in his voice almost leads the warrior to give him a piece, but he does not. He must be strict if he is to get proper answers for him and the watching All-Father.

"So that discovery caused you to veer from innocent machinations to genocide?"

"Yes, to an extent. It moved me to defend my home." His eyes open again to meet Fandral's. "I was a fool who did not wish to see Asgard burn, and a fool who was bold enough to believe he could prove himself in this realm of demagogues."

Fandral knows that's the truth. This costume would never allow the prince to call himself a fool as a jest. Likewise, it is too proud to acknowledge the boy that came before him, much less call it himself. He stands, grabs a piece of the treat, and nears the barrier to Loki's cell.

"This is how this will work. You will extend your palm and I will take down the barrier just long enough to set one piece down. If you so much as move a centimeter, I will enable the barrier again and consume five of your treats after I kick a particularly tender spot. You will answer five questions without a reward afterwards. Understood?"

Loki looks like he wants to argue, but he ends up saying he does. The prince lays out his palm and waits. As the barrier comes down Fandral prepares for Loki to pounce, but he says as still as stone. To make sure it stays that way (and to step on the prince's nerves), Fandral waits in front of him for a moment. Loki gives him nothing more than a souring scowl the longer he makes him wait.

So, Fandral sets a piece on the younger's palm. Once the barrier is up again, Loki breaks that bite-sized piece in two between his fair fingers and pops one half in his mouth. He doesn't chew. He closes his eyes to let the first half melt. Little by little Fandral watches a pure smile take form. Some silent moments pass, and then Loki takes his last half. This one he chews slowly.

As he opens his eyes again, Fandral catches a glimpse of younger Loki, but with his last swallow the cold criminal costume pieces itself back together. The dashing one hopes that wherever Odin is, somehow he saw that glimpse of his son too.

"Good." Fandral sits again, this time on his knees at just the right spot where he can reach the disable button. "What happened in the void?"

"That is not a yes or no question."

"Which means you are forced to give me truthful details. Go on."

Loki peers down at his overgrown nails. "I kept falling. Someone saved me."

"Details, Loki."

The prince bites his lips to not roll his eyes. "I do not know. I did not see who. I was weakened to near death." He shakes his head and stares into the distance. "Pathetic," he mumbles.

Fandral is nearly fooled, until he catches the princeling glance to the left. "You are lying."

Loki's glare sours again. "I do not know his name. We struck a deal, which was all that mattered to me."

"Describe him then."

The younger rubs his forehead. "I don't know... Massive build, three times smarter than your precious blond prince, violet skin and eyes, shrewder than an eternal elf."

Fandral disables the barrier again. Loki holds out his palm, completely still yet again. The older sets the treat down, and raises it again. He watches in silence while the prince savors his second bite.

"Was taking over Midgard part of the deal?" he asks once Loki's stone eyes meet his again.

"No. I was to retrieve the Tesseract for him. It was I who asked for an army, which worked out well considering the Chitauri are a conquering race."

"Why did he want the Tesseract?"

Loki grins. "My reward first, Newlyson."

Fandral shrugs. "You left out the detail as to why he needed you to retrieve it. Answer."

"Fair enough. He had one strong gem which was in my scepter. I understood he wished to add another to his collection. I know not why, but I have since come to understand they both are Infinity Stones. You could do nothing worthwhile without five and a gauntlet. Likewise, only the celestials can wield them and remain unaffected by their negative influences."

"I see. Good answer." Fandral disables the barrier, Loki holds out his palm. This time he does not receive his treat, but rather a careful stare. "Can I trust you? Can I leave this down?"

Loki laughs once, that madness keynote ever steadfast. "Do what you wish, Asgardian."

"That was a question. Two actually."

"Can I move oh keeper of mine?"

"You can stay where you are or change positions if you wish. You are to remain seated however."

Loki chuckles. "May I pluck the fine tendrils out of your skull?"

The warrior stares. "I am serious, Loki. If you so much as move your legs I will not hesitate to bring you pain."

"Oh," the prince whispers in that new insane tone of his paired with the ghost of a smile, "What makes you think I fear pain?"

"Because you can feel no matter how colossal your ego is. Ask one more question and see what happens." Loki smiles. Minutes after, he nods. "If that is an answer to my question then you must confirm it aloud."

"Yes, you may leave the barrier down."

"Was that so hard? Here." He sets two pieces on Loki's palm.

"Yes, it was my most arduous venture as of yet," the younger says after swallowing both savored bites.

Fandral pulls his dagger out of his boot and places it at his side, where he can pick it up with a swift reach. Loki sees it, but he does not react. Then, Fandral squats to the left side of the prince – his weak side. By the nose twitch he knows Loki understands his purpose.

"Do you or do you not fear pain?"

"No, I do not fear pain."

"What do you fear?"

Loki blinks too fast for a second. "I would rather you gauge out my eyes while strangling me and skinning me than answer that question."

Fandral notes every single twitch in his body. Slowly he forgets about the bribing because the more he searches, the more he knows he struck the golden question that would tell him more in Loki's silence.

It is when he finds Loki staring at his arm— _the_ arm—that his cogs click. "Yourself. You fear yourself." The younger's surprised stare meets his invading one. "You do," the warrior adds, "You stare at that arm whenever you feel cornered. You did so in the Bifrost, in the healing room, when we approached you on the throne, on Midgard, when Thor brought you home." Fandral scoots closer to his friend and peers deeper into Loki's calculating eyes. "'Tis true. I can see it. You are playing a game. You are pretending to follow a trail and you're afraid you will follow it in truth one day. Tell me, Loki, are these barriers truly holding you, or are you allowing them to hold you so you do not find yourself running too far down this newfound path?"

The prince is breathing faster. Fandral can see his blossoming desire to rip him apart in transformed murderous eyes.

He smiles. "You have been a trickster, but never this. The costume feels too big on you, does it not, which is why you feel free to strip it off when reminded of what was. But you know one day the costume will be one with you. You fear that, so the Master of Magic with a mind as vast as Yggdrasil stays behind these golden lights." The shadow that crosses the younger's ashen skin won't let him conclude there.

What was that look? The one from before?

Fandral tilts Loki's chin up to the angle the prince had done himself before. "No. Look at that." Blue slits burn a hole through him as Fandral's first two fingers trace tension chords over the chin and across the prince's jaw. He feels every single little twitch of fury, practically feels the storm brewing underneath porcelain skin. The tension chords grow stronger, which he continues to chase without taking his eyes off the inferno burning in the prince's eyes.

He finds the source. Fandral pushes back Loki's asymmetrical sleeve to reveal the naked weakness. "It all comes back to your arm. It is your strength as much as your weakness. But the costume..." He latches onto the pulse racing underneath raging skin. "It already fits. You are ticking power, you know it, and you know when you must erupt, but the costume, your new skin, will make you erupt too early." His fingers trail down the arm to catch the wrist. He feels every string of tendon constrict as the prince's hand curls into a fist. "Midgard was nothing, wasn't it? You merely treated yourself to some child's play. You hold back all the brimming power in your veins for someone special, someone you hate with all you are."

Fandral nears until their noses are centimeters apart, but a hand prepares to reach for the dagger. "Is it those you allied with? Asgard? ...Odin?"

It happens faster than Fandral can grab it however. With a monstrous scowl paired with a mother of hisses, Loki grabs him and hurls him out of the cell. The warrior scrambles up and runs after him, who's already reached the mouth of the stairwell back to Asgard once the momentary blindness from impact dissipates.

Loki unleashes boiling seidr towards him, which he bolts out of the trail of in the nick of time. He flings himself towards him. The prince knocks him off coarse and kicks out, to which Fandral swoops out of reach but locks onto his ankle. He pulls his feet from under him.

Kick, yank, toss.

Jab, slap, scratch.

Roll, punch, blood.

The only two things Fandral can think about are 1) Loki could quite kill him and 2) Loki does not fight _anywhere_ close to how he had before. He moves and twists and breathes like chaos itself, never stopping to blink, never giving up even when the warrior's dagger flies across his face with centimeters to spare before it cuts through an eye.

It is finally Fandral who wins when he grabs Loki seconds before the insane prince could scrape his face off and flips him onto the stone ground and slams him in the windpipe with the heel of his boot. Out of a strange instinct he crushes him harder until the embodiment of chaos chokes.

That is when he remembers Odin's words: "Loki is a Frost Giant." And it feels so wrong but so right that the princeling with blue skin is so undignified underneath him, stripped of the right to face him as an equal.

Loki laughs that insane laugh again once he catches just enough breath. "Crush me harder, Asgardian," he encourages with a sharp edge of poison in his voice. Fandral's mortified because he does so without realizing he gave him his wish. Somehow the prince has enough open airway to keep squawking with his broken baritone. "Squash the little shadow pest. Come on, now, don't stop here. Get a blade and cut my throat. Mount the monster once and for all. Unless I can make a request: get that bloody perfect prince of yours to crucify me dripping out in his blasted father's Vault like I should have been!"

And Fandral's heart pounds and knee trembles because he's never seen anyone sobbing without tears before.

Loki's claws dig into his pants. "Strike me down, Asgardian, before I rise." And he's moving his boot with hands crawling up the warrior's leg as he rises like a monster out of children's nightmare. "Kill it, Fandral, kill it. Before it kills you."

But Fandral can't see past the tears welling in his blazing eyes. He can't kick away the terrified look of someone knowing they're staring death right in the eyes. The warrior's offense makes him grab Loki up and reel him up to his face.

"I am not killing you," he yells, "I want your precious blood in your priceless veins you deranged dunce!" He doesn't know what makes him throw the prince down again, just that his heart feels so heavy he almost can't breathe. "Damn it, Loki, stop. You are not a monster!"

Loki laughs hoarsely into the stone below him. "Then tell me why it feels so becoming to be under your heel."

His guts drop as he watches the prince trace the indents embedded in his skin. "You are consummately insane." Before the prince tries to say another word through his wheezing, Fandral takes him over his shoulders and carries him towards his cell.

"I could strangle you," the princeling whispers. Despite the spider fingers reaching up his back, Fandral is not afraid.

"I could paralyze you," he replies, knocking on the sliver exposed end of Loki's spine with a knuckle. He would have felt victorious before because the threat makes chaos shiver, but instead he feels even more horrible considering what had just transpired.

He sets Loki down in the center of his cell and clears out, spilled treats and all. The prince brings his knees up against his chest as his barriers go up again.

Fandral cannot bring himself to watch him anymore. He just stares at the floor while wiping dozens of bleeding cuts. "You told me I could trust you when I let this down."

"No, I told you to do what you wished and that you could take it down," the prince replies with his face still hidden behind his knees.

"So I heard what I wanted. You betrayed my goodwill." He sighs and peers down to the treats still left alongside Frigga's quilt. "You need these, you need your family, but I cannot condone your betrayal. I will give you a drop of grace though." He looks up to find Loki gazing at the quilt. "Answer one more question and you may keep your mother's quilt."

Loki just blinks. Then, he closes his eyes as if they steady a mountain. "I knew your goddamn prince would escape. He had Mjölnir." They open again, looking twice the age they were seconds before. "No matter how insane I become, it will not be I who kills him." He looks like he wants to say more, but decides against it.

Fandral nods while the tightness in his chest relaxes. So behind all his dementedness, Loki still loves his brother. That is all the proof needed; in time the lost prince could come back to himself.

He disables the barrier again, then steps inside with Frigga's gift in hand. The moment the sunny quilt drapes over the prince's shoulders is the moment he sees Loki's full body costume tear.

Out the warrior goes towards the stairwell that leads back up to Asgard, but he cannot help but steal glances over his shoulder. He catches albumen colored fingers bringing up the corners to his nose, and closed eyes leaking rivers. The deathlike dew on the face of the prince becomes invisible behind warm summer colors blooming on his cheeks.

Fandral thinks if he's ever seen Loki in the purest essence of his being, then it was now. All he knows for certain is that Loki is not as far as everyone believes, even if he is trying to hold back the overwhelming rush from recounting his mother's lively gardens.

#

The dashing warrior sits with his friends around the table. All he can think about is 1) how appeasing it is to see Thor scheming and 2) how the golden prince's eyes hold a tense but grateful spark when he says the pathways between the realms are known by only one: Loki.

The prince received gifts from his mother (which he saw the All-Father conveniently ignoring once by pretending to be engrossed in revising the seventeenth revision of new legislature), enough to reel him back from degrading into more insanity. The warrior steals glances at him when he works shifts in the dungeons, and he's either resharpening that endless mind with books on his bed or playing with illusions in his mirror.

Fandral cracks his fingers.

"No," Volstagg gasps. Fandral thinks he's right to be afraid as he combs back to the prince's chaotic cunning and explosive bursts.

"He will betray you," he warns, to which Thor nods to hide the stab that truth bite leaves.

"He will try."

Volstagg lets out a deep breath. "That's out of the way, then. Everyone should prepare for that. How do you plan to get him on our side?"

"Trust me," is all Thor says.

Fandral nods and kicks back in his seat. He knows exactly what Thor's bribe will be. "So what then? Your lovely mortal is guarded by a legion of Einherjar who will see you coming from miles away."

Thor's gaze turns to Sif. "I won't be the one who comes for her."

Sif works her jaw for a moment. "Fine, but I reserve the right to threaten your baby brother."

"Touché," says Volstagg.

Thus unwinds the whole plan. Recruit Loki, steal back Jane, take off on an elven ship, and Fandral's role: be prepared with a skif outside the central region of Asgard.

He is. He sees Thor push Loki out, at which moment he speeds up the skif. Loki flails with cuffed wrists, and doesn't fall on his feet like he's wont to do. Thor touches down with Jane in arms a moment later right next to him.

Fandral chuckles as he watches the younger prince struggle back onto his feet. "I see your time in the dungeons has made you no less graceful, Loki."

Loki pretends he's ignoring him. Pretends he is not grateful to the only warrior that took him seriously, without the whole childish threatening business. He watches Thor set the unconscious Jane down. "You lied to me. I'm impressed."

"I'm glad you're pleased. Now do as you promised."

The shadow prince did by tenfold.

Thor comes back hours later, alone. He's bloodied, weary, and...grieving.

"Loki is dead. He laid down his life for Asgard," he says to them. Then Thor goes on to say something about leaving for Midgard, but Fandral can't pay attention. The one person whose death could feel so right but so wrong is gone. But the dashing lets himself fall into a seat as he remembers the night he spoke to Loki.

He whose costume fits and mind has been sharpened to a fine sheet but whose heart has not healed is free (that is if he is still alive). And he whose mind races with cunning unlike another and seidr as raging as a torrent would not lay his life down.

That is, he would either pretend, or he would bargain with the Norns themselves.

His gaze locks on Thor. "The game is on," he finds himself breathing out.

* * *

 **A/N:** The idea is that Odin allowed Frigga to fill Loki's cell with his things in order to reel his son back from his insanity, because let's be honest, there was no way Frigga could take all that furniture to Loki without Odin noticing. And if he minded then he would have said something. Surprise though! Frigga has no idea he's on her side.

My headcanon is that Odin wants his son back just as much as Frigga, but shows that in a different way, so with Fandral's talk with Loki, he sees being in a cell is actually backtracking Loki's potential progress.

As always, thank you for reading!


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